However common experience indicates that removing lint, hair, and the like from clothing by conventional brushing is not always successful. For example, static electricity may tend to bind hairs, lint, and other small debris to the surface of clothing. Although brushing one's clothing can mechanically remove some lint, hair, or other particles from the clothing surface, the brushing does not provide any conditioning of the clothing. Too often the lint and other material on the clothing is simply mechanically repositioned.
It is known in the art to produce an air flow electro-kinetically by directly converting electrical power into a flow of air without mechanically moving components. One such system is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,789,801 to Lee (1988), depicted herein in simplified form as FIGS. 1A and 1B. Lee's system 10 provides a first array of small area ("minisectional") electrodes 20 is spaced-apart symmetrically from a second array of larger area ("maxisectional") electrodes 30, with a high voltage (e.g., 5 KV) pulse generator 40 coupled between the two arrays. Generator 40 outputs high voltage pulses that ionize the air between the arrays, producing an air flow 50 from the minisectional array toward the maxisectional array results. The high voltage field present between the two arrays can release ozone (O.sub.3), which can advantageously safely destroy many types of bacteria if excessive quantities of ozone are not released.
Unfortunately, Lee's tear-shaped maxisectional electrodes are relatively expensive to fabricate, most likely requiring mold-casting or extrusion processes. Further, air flow and ion generation efficiency is not especially high using Lee's configuration.
There is a need for a brush that can not only brush away lint, hair, etc. from clothing and other material, but provide a measure of cleaning and/or conditioning as well. Preferably such brush should subject the material being brushed to an ion flow to promote cleaning and grooming.
The present invention provides such a grooming brush.